But also there is this common to all, that they all imply some degree of self-denial, self-sacrifice or temporal hardness, willingly endured for the sake of God. Of some this is expressed, as of those in whom the blessings culminate, those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, and, when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. But mourning too is from some outward or inward sorrow, although this issues in the cry of the soul to God: rarely would it, unoccasioned by ought besides, be solely from the soul's missing its seemingly absent God. Hunger and thirst after righteousness are the burn ing disquiet of the soul, through the body of death in which it is imprisoned, and for its unlikeness to its God. The histories of saints attest with what hardness and self-discipline purity of soul is, by the grace of God, maintained: the history of sinners, how incompatible it is with self-indulgence or ful ness of bread. Mercifulness, in its very name, implies a fellow-suffering. Compassion, sympathy, mitleid.